


Class of 2009

by gateship



Series: Avengers Assemble [14]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Culver University, Gen, Graduation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gateship/pseuds/gateship
Summary: After spending the entirety of her senior year in New Mexico with Jane, it's time to head back to Virginia for graduation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by my own graduation this past spring and the fact that I need to start setting up the background for the Avengers film rewrite I'm doing for Nanowrimo 2016.

She regretted the heels before the ceremony had even begun considering she’d had to stand in line alphabetically by department for an hour before graduation began. Jane had warned her about choosing appropriate shoes but Darcy had chalked it up to Jane being terrible at wearing heels – which was true. Jane hated high heels and since she rarely wore them she said she felt she was going to fall over any second in them.

Darcy had been told there wasn’t any rehearsal for graduation, but she hadn’t anticipated having to alphabetize themselves when lining up. Culver University had two campuses – the one in Virginia that she attended and one in West Virginia. Luckily they didn’t require one campus to truck out to the other campus and had two separate ceremonies on the two campuses. Regardless there were a number of people in the Political Science Department that she’d forgotten the names of. She had been in New Mexico for the entirety of the last academic year.

Thor had wanted to come to graduation but SHIELD had categorically told him and the other Asgardians that they were 100% not allowed to come. Darcy figured that Thor was using the time to focus on the fact that his brother had hidden the fact that he wasn’t dead for so many months and to grill Sif on the fact that she’d been dating his brother for some number of centuries. That had certainly been what was happening when she and Jane left for Virginia.

Jane had to come to graduation seeing as she was technically a professor even if she was on a research assignment. And she had wanted to come regardless, seeing as she had spent the last academic year with Darcy. What had started out as an internship for some measly science credits had become an actual friendship thanks to the alien pseudo invasion. Erik had been AWOL from New Mexico for some time. Jane was of the opinion that he had a separate life and responsibilities. Darcy thought the jack booted thugs were involved. The SHIELD lackies had been pretty vague the first time he left them. He had shown up for graduation and she planned on grilling him later. Hopefully he would be coming back to New Mexico with the two of them the day after graduation, but Darcy wasn’t holding out as much hope as Jane was.

The graduation rules had said not to bring cell phones to the ceremony as it was rude and disrespectful, but with at graduating class of over 300 there was no way Darcy wasn’t bringing her phone. She wasn’t going to be able to find _anyone_ after the ceremony was over otherwise. And since the graduation ceremony itself was incredibly boring and since she knew Jane had her phone on her, she started off texting Jane but after 10 minutes and zero responses she got bored. She might’ve gotten some dirty looks and hissed comments while she surged the web, checked Instagram, and live tweeted, but she didn’t really care.

Honestly, she wasn’t super invested in graduation. A few classmates had been bragging about their post school jobs or graduate schools. Darcy had been set on applying to grad school, but then Thor had landed in November and the idea of aliens had sort of taken precedent over grad school. The SHIELD lackeys had reminded her yet again that she couldn’t talk about Thor or Jane’s research with anyone on campus. Darcy wasn’t an idiot. She knew she couldn’t talk about any of that. And when a couple of people asked what she was doing after graduation, she’d shrugged and made some half assed comment about finding herself. Grad school was still always an option, as Jane wrangling was not a forever-career kind of option, but for now she was good.

By the time the ceremony was over and she was back in her seat without a diploma (that would be mailed to her in four to six weeks) her feet hurt from her shoes and her back hurt from the truly terrible folding chairs. Once the students had filed out of the auditorium and Darcy lost any sort of track of Jane or her family she pulled her phone back out.

It took about thirty minutes of texting and searching, but she found her parents. She found Erik first, but didn’t have enough time to interrogate him properly before she sent him off to find Jane. While looking for her parents she could’ve sworn that she saw Agent Coulson between the throng of people. He seemed to be talking to a professor – a woman she’d seen around the science building before but didn’t really know. Both of them were gone before Darcy could actually see more than a couple glimpses though. It was entirely possible that she hadn’t seen Coulson, but it sure looked like him. If Agent Coulson had been on campus, then he would be talking to Erik or Jane so she’d ask them later.

She spent the rest of the day and evening with her parents to celebrate her graduation, but spent the night in Jane’s hotel room. Far too early for either of their preferences they were up and packing their things up for the trip back to New Mexico and Jane’s alien boyfriend. Erik was, once again, not with them. Jane wasn’t worried about it though.

“What did you think of graduation?” Jane asked as their flight was taxiing out to the runway.

“Pretty boring,” Darcy said. “Sherry was bragging about getting a job with the UN, but I’m pretty sure she’s just a mail clerk.”

Jane shrugged. “I have to admit I thought my own was pretty boring too. The ceremony for my PhD was better.”

“You were right about the heels though,” Darcy said. “Did you see Agent Coulson yesterday?”

“No,” Jane said. “Did you see him?”

“I thought I did, but if he didn’t talk to you or Erik, I might’ve just seen someone that looks like him,” Darcy said. “Did Erik mention anything to you?”

“No, not a word,” Jane said. “Who was the Coulson look alike with?”

“One of the professors. Science building, last name starts with an ‘R’ I think? Brunette.”

Jane thought for a minute before saying, “Dr. Ross? Hmm, that actually makes sense. She was with Dr. Banner working on a classified military project before it went wrong. Erik knew Drs. Banner and Ross when he was teaching here. It’s possible he actually was there.”

“That’s weird,” Darcy said. “I figured he would’ve talked to you. Erik still doesn’t like him, but maybe they talked and Erik just didn’t say anything.”

“I don’t care. He can talk to whoever he wants so long as they stop interfering in my research,” Jane said.

“They’re going to continue to interfere in your research,” Darcy said. “It’s the government. All they do is interfere in research."


End file.
